


The one where Loki is the soul stone

by SwirlsOfBlueJay



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Coda, Fix-It, Loki (Marvel)-centric, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwirlsOfBlueJay/pseuds/SwirlsOfBlueJay
Summary: Loki wakes. He doesn’t know where he is. But his head is pounding with what feels like trillions of voices and his skin is green.





	1. Chapter 1

Loki wakes. He doesn’t know where he is. But his head is pounding with what feels like trillions of voices and his skin is green. Not painted or glamoured, the skin itself has changed colour. The voices are panicked, terrified, grief-filled and angry. He tries to shut them out. What is happening?

“Come here and see.” A voice says, it’s more distinctive than the others and Loki finds it behind a wall in his mind.

“Tear it down.”

The wall is solid, but Loki knows he could easily. “Why should I?”

“The answers are all here. You will see all that’s been hidden from you.”

Loki considers, trying to figure it out himself. The voices, too many, a thought clicks; enough to fill half a universe.

“Thanos won then.”

“Yes,” the voice answers.

“But why are their voices in my head? Why am I green?”

“Tear down the wall and find out.”

Loki probably will, but he needs to know what he’s getting into first. And he clearly can’t trust this voice to tell him. He thinks. They aren’t voices. They are souls. Loki’s a well-schooled Prince of Asgard, he knows enough about the infinity stones to know what that means.

But no. It can’t be. He can’t be. He’s not. He’s not a thing. He’s a person. He’s real. He was a child, he grew up. This doesn’t make any sense. He can feel his heart shattering. Like when he found out he was Jotunn. Only worse. Much worse.

He doesn’t ask, ‘am I the soul stone’. He’s not ready to hear the answer out loud.

“Why am I green?”

“Destroy the wall and you’ll know.”

Loki nods. “Because all my memories are behind that wall. Billions of years of memories.”

The voice trills, excited, “Yes, come here.”

And he knows then that he can’t. If there’s one thing Loki knows about himself it’s that the older he gets, the less he’s able to care. And at billions of years he likely won’t even care for these trillions of lives, Gods half the universe. Loki takes a determined breath. “No.”

The voice sighs. Accepts defeat gracefully, it is part of Loki after all, knows when Loki won’t change his mind. 

“You’re green because you take the form of the last sacrifice.”

The answer comes almost too quick, too eager. Loki realises they’re playing a new game now. The voice hoping to slip enough through the wall that it renders said wall irrelevant. He’ll need to be careful with his questions. He keeps turning everything over in his mind.

“Hela. Odin sacrificed Hela to get me.”

He’s talking to himself but the voice answers anyway. “Yes.” 

“Why was I a baby?”

“Thanos asked for half the universe. Odin asked for that.”

Loki can see the genius of it. One way to get the soul stone genuinely on side. “And we allowed it?”

The voice shrugs. Loki doesn’t know how a voice can shrug, but somehow it does. “A few thousand years is nothing in the scope of billions. And it seemed like it would be interesting.”

“Odin didn’t do anything though.”

“He did enough. He was trying to keep us out of Thanos’ hands. As long as the one who holds the stone is living, it can’t be taken. Only when the keeper dies and the sacrifice is released can another claim the stone.”

“Oh.”

In hindsight Loki can see that it was a good idea for Odin to keep the truth from him. He would’ve fallen into a much deeper and more complete madness than he had with the whole Jotun thing. Not knowing what was real, whether any of the loyalty or love he felt was real or just an enforced bond. But now, he knows with certainty it is. For he feels no pull from Thanos, no urge to run to him or do as he bids.

“What exactly does it mean, to have a keeper. What are our obligations?”

“Very little to be truthful. But we let these mortals have their fun.”

Loki almost balks at the notion of Asgardians and Jotuns and Titans being mortal but he supposes for a being that lives for the length of the universe, they are.  

The voice speaks, “May I ask you a question?”

Loki knows it’s probably unwise to indulge the voice, but he does have a habit of dangerous decisions, “Of course.”

“Did you never wonder about how connected your powers were to the stones?”

“No, I didn’t.” And it’s the truth, Loki had honestly never thought about it. But now he can see it, he almost feels foolish for not noticing earlier. He could bend reality with his illusions. He could look through the memories in peoples’ minds. He could let out blasts of power. He was the only one on Asgard able to travel through space via the secret paths. And he managed to use the tesseract from the other end of the galaxy.

He frowns. “Did Thanos know?”

“No. He’s a fool.”

“I have no control over time.”

“We haven’t been near the time stone in an age. And it was well protected. Until now. Try something.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Loki can feel the great vastness of time at his fingertips, incomprehensible power waiting for him. So tantalising, enticing him in. Oh the things he could do. He resists. This is exactly what the soul stone voice wants, for him to be engulfed, consumed. He turns to space and reality instead, just as vast, possibly just as dangerous, but a familiar power. Ones he has enough mastery of to venture out into the new.

 

As he focuses the voices quieten. Maybe the voices know they need to be silent for this or maybe it’s the work of the soul stone. Either way, it lights a fire of panic within Loki. It’s too much. There’s too much room to think. There’s a too familiar deep ache blooming in his chest and again he’s falling and falling and falling.

 

He can’t do this again. He can’t go through this again. He chastises himself. He doesn’t have time for this. And it’s not like it changes anything. So he’s a tool, a weapon, that’s nothing he didn’t know already. Unless he’s not real at all. What if he’s not the soul stone; but just a figment the stone created.

 

He tells himself it doesn’t matter, he’s real enough now, and he has no intention of handing control back to the stone. The notion doesn’t quell the panic. The stone is too powerful; he would be smarter to deny it the fight at all. To wander off and never touch this new power, just leave things be. 

 

You are the stone. The voice says. It sounds truthful enough, but Loki has always been best at lying to himself.

 

It doesn’t matter anyway; he can’t just leave things as they are. What about Thor? Loki has to know he’s okay. Loki has to fix this. There’s no time to fall apart. He bids the voices to start talking again, it’s painful again, he shakes his head, and lets the cacophony calm him, drown away his spiralling thoughts.

 

He needs to know his options. He looks out across the universe, familiar but forever changed, and then tentatively, recklessly, determinedly, steps further. He reaches out, awe-struck, at the press of millions of realities shifting and shimmering before him. And then sifts through them, searching. For familiar selves, powerful selves, darker selves, versions of him who have already won this game.

 

He walks through their minds and their memories. 

 

 

_“It’s clear Odin loved you deeply,” Loki tells Hela. He doesn’t expect it to stop her or even slow her down, but he says it anyway because he’s been where she is and needed to hear it. “After all he fashioned my glamour in your image.”_

_Hela scoffs, continuing the battle as fast as ever. “He had no love for me. He killed my child just because I had the audacity to lay with the king of the frost giants.”_

_Everyone freezes and turns to Loki, as though they expect them to switch sides on a whim. Loki rolls his eyes. “She’s clearly lying.”_

_Their actions have caught Hela’s eye. “Of what do you speak?”_

_No one says anything. Except the Hulk, “Loki is Frost Giant prince.”_

_There’s a moment where Hela looks at them unimpressed, but something must tip her off that it’s true because all colour drains from her face, she stumbles slightly. And any notion that she may be acting vanishes when she, seemingly unthinkingly, drops her weapons._

_Loki and Thor stare at each other. At yet another ridiculous revelation in their lives._

 

 

There are worlds where Hela is his mother and worlds where she’s his daughter. There’s even one where the two of them are twins, taken away from each other as children for fear of what their power will bring. It’s clear that he isn’t the soul stone in many realities. And there are many more where he’s not aware of being the stone even if he is. The notion is bemusing. But he’s careful not to ask the question of how, he doesn’t want to give the stone more than he has to. It’s also entirely possible that the soul stone is manipulating which realities he’s seeing, not allowing him to look at his other soul stone selves.  

 

 

_Loki was ever curious as a child, it lead to some destructive accidents, the revelation of some old murals. So of course Loki knew of Hela. He couldn’t stop there though. He wanted to know more about his sister. There were two strong locks on the cage: one mother’s and one father’s. But Loki had learned magic at his mother’s knee and knew the scent of Frigga’s work. And thus he found the cage. It couldn’t be opened. But he spoke to Hela. And then he visited often after. Talking for hours and hours. He hid himself, made sure no one knew. But when she finally escaped he knew they would work together. Finally take all that was theirs._

_Loki catches Hela’s ear within the Byfrost’s swirling current, lets her know he will happily serve her. Joins her in Asgard. He tells her of everything that has happened, of the infinity stones and Thanos and the worlds for the taking. She allows him to go to Thor, bring him to Asgard for a grand deception they have planned. It’s time this hall of ghosts is torn down and something far grander built in its place._

 

 

They seem to hover around Ragnarok.

 

Odin died. Asgard fell. The world was burned alive. This is an old story. But the when, the when is different in every telling.

 

None of these other worlds have reached the point of Thanos collecting all the stones. It’s possible that his reality is the first to do so. But far more likely is that the stone is keeping the others from him.

 

 

_Loki smiles as he realises Thor hasn’t understood what Loki being able to fake his own death really meant. His illusions weren’t limited to just visual and auditory anymore. They were sensory too. It made it a lot harder to spot. It had been a long time and Loki had worked on his powers, grown them. He’s now capable of a lot more than Thor realises. The moment he calls for the Byfrost, he creates illusions for his two older siblings. They should both know better than to underestimate their little brother. Gives them separate illusory worlds to play in. It’s a lot of detail work, but not too difficult; after all, all liars must be story-tellers._

_Afterwards he shows Thor the truth; their world and people whole and hale. And Thor’s smile is worth everything._

 

 

He could push, he knows, stretch to find what’s hidden, but he almost thinks that’s what the stone wants, given its quietness, and so he doesn’t. Once he’s reluctantly accepted that he’s not going to be able to see other soul stone selves or other selves who have gone through Thanos’ galaxy cull already and come out the other side, he starts focusing on his powerful selves. Looks at the way these Loki’s have grown their powers, some with the aid of the infinity stones, some without.

 

 

_Hela delivers a second punch which takes Thor’s remaining eye and it all spirals downhill from there. Thor, now blind, still fights valiantly. But it isn’t long before Hela drops his corpse off the bridge in front of all of Asgard._

_Loki allows himself a moment of wrath and pain and then swallows. He’s smart enough to know that if he wants to fight her he needs to be alive to do so. He takes a deep breath and kneels. And for once, the rest of Asgard follows him._

_It’s not hard to become Hela’s most cherished right hand. He does after all know her, understand her; they are so similar and yet so different. They work well together._

_Every time someone speaks to him outside of Hela’s hearing they refer to him as ‘King Loki’. The one time he isn’t trying to be a leader, the people have decided he’s theirs. After all, if there’s one thing the people of Asgard can have faith in, it’s that Loki is always plotting something._

_They roll over the realms and beyond. And Loki asks for Earth, if only so he can keep safe this silly little realm that Thor so cherished._

 

There are worlds where he’s a slave and worlds where he’s a king and worlds where he’s a God.

 

_There’s a tale. Where night is day and the walls hear all your whispers._

_Thor’s lightening fills the pitch black sky as though there are three suns out. Strikes and strikes and strikes. And everyone runs and hides. Making plans for escape, making plans for survival, even though they should know better. They are too afraid. Loki’s clones are in every alley and crevasse and doorway, hidden, watching, listening, stealing reality from under their feet and moulding it into the unknown._

_Thor and Loki are Gods in more than name._

One thing is clear, the worlds where he wins are those where him and Thor stand together. Or him and Hela. And he given the two, he knows which he would prefer. And so he turns his gaze back to his universe, doing what he’s been avoiding, the knowledge he’s too afraid to seek; whether Thor is alive or dead.

 

His peers at the galaxy, trepidation sits like silt in his lungs, seeking his brother.  

 

There. Loki finds him. His lungs start moving again. He closes his eyes to keep away tears of relief. And tracks a path to Midgard, moving himself there. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Thor crushes him into a hug, grip different to their previous reunions, more desperate, any pretence of holding back sloughed away. Any frustration or distrust or anger shelved. His brother whispers, worryingly sincere, “I thought all was lost.”

And Loki wants to fix it all if only to bring back a fraction of Thor’s spirit.

A man in an iron man suit says, “Okay I’m confused. Why are we pointing our guns at the guy Thor’s hugging?”

“It’s Loki.”

“Wait, Loki, as in battle of New York Loki?”

 

 

Thor eventually let’s go and Loki’s able to address the myriad of weapons pointing at him, raising his hands, placating, he says, “I come in peace.”

“What do you want?” the captain asks.

“I require your help.” Loki directs the words at everyone even though they are for Thor alone.

The widow, the captain and Bruce reply simultaneously:

“No.”

“You’re kidding.”

“We have bigger concerns.”

Loki answers, “Those concerns are why I’m here. Half of the universe isn’t lost. I can save them.”

The widow says, “Of course you would tell us exactly what we want to hear and make yourself indispensable in the process.”

Not-iron-man says, “Why should we believe you?”

And the captain says, “Even if we did believe you why would we trust you to help us?”

“Friends please, let us at least listen, Loki is changed and will be of great help to us,” Thor urges.

“He did help us on Asgard,” Bruce adds.

The Captain lowers his shield mere inches, shoulders remaining tensed, and the others follow his lead. Loki speaks,

“I’m the soul stone. The souls of the vanished reside within me.”

“What?”

“They are here. I promise it.”

“Prove it.”

“Ask a question only one of them will know the answer to.”

The captain asks, “And how do we know you won’t just pluck the answers from our minds?”

“I cannot do so without touch,” Loki’s not sure that’s still true, but he isn’t going to reveal that now, “Ask something that you’ve learned since I last saw you.”

“Is Bucky in there?”

 

 

Loki searches, the loved ones of the avengers are already clamouring to the surface, and the others are quietening to make way. He listens to each, and worries he won’t be able to pick out one person after all. Until, ah there.

“He says your mother’s name was Sarah and you used to put crumpled up newspapers in your shoes to make yourself taller.”

“You could have seen that in Steve’s mind the last time you were here. Or even a museum.”

“No,” Steve says, “That’s Bucky.”

A woman with a shaved head says, “This is something unknown to almost all: what revelation drove T’Challa to change his mind and open Wakanda?”

“He found out that his father murdered his uncle, and left the man’s child alone to fend for himself.”

The woman nods.

More important is that Thor believes him and he keeps scouring his mind for someone who will convince him.

“Tree says he used his arm to make the handle of your axe.”

A strange rabbit creature gasps.

Thor grins. “Loki speaks the truth!”

 

 

The captain says, “Okay, let’s say we believe you. Why should we trust you now? You’ve clearly been conspiring with Thanos this whole time. He couldn’t have completed the gauntlet without you.”

“I haven’t been working with him. If I had, I wouldn’t have let him massacre Asgard.”

“Oh, because you’re so against killing people.”

“You don’t have to trust me. But the souls are here, so you have little choice but to work with me.”

“Okay how do we get the souls out?” 

“It’s not easy. I will die.”

Thor’s voice booms, “No! There must be another way.”

Loki’s sure Thor would say he was being over-dramatic if he explained completely. But what is death if not your very self being consumed, your very being, and feelings and ideas and motivations being no more.

The captain turns to Thor, with a conciliatory expression, “Thor…”

Thor says, “You said no one person should be sacrificed, does that not still apply?”

Loki listens silently as they continue to argue; their decision isn’t important and will have little impact on what comes to pass. What’s important is they now seem to be willing to work with him. What’s important is that Thor is by his side.

“Hey! What’s that?!” Not-iron-man says.

The quarrelling ceases and silence falls. Everyone turns. A gaudy space ship is coming towards them. Loki knows immediately who it is.

“It’s The Grandmaster.”

 

 

“Let me,” Loki says and, after Thor nods, they surprisingly allow him to move forward on his own.    

Watching The Grandmaster stride towards him, a thought occurs to Loki. Of course The Elder would be interested in the soul stone, they are both ancient beings. An ache churns his chest and he blinks back tears.  Just like others before him, The Grandmaster wasn’t interested in Loki at all, only what he was.

Him and The Grandmaster may’ve had an odd relationship, more of a battle than a courtship, but Loki had still felt there was something there. The sting of betrayal is startling.

‘You’re right not to trust him. He only wishes to use us,’ the soul stone voice says.

“Loki! There you are! You’ve had me looking all over for you!”

“Looking for me? Or just the soul stone?” Loki states.

“What a silly idea. You, of course.”

‘We will show you the truth.’ The voice says.

And then everything fades away.

 

 

_Loki stands in the quarters gifted to him by The Grandmaster, staring out of the window -that reaches from the floor to the ceiling- at the sun rising. The luxury of the place supposed evidence of his being in The Elder’s favour. He’s been here three weeks today. He’d thought that he had done a good job of getting into The Grandmaster’s good graces. He’d thought he was in control, doing well. He doesn’t know how he could’ve been so wrong._

_“Am I to be allowed out of my prison today?”_

_“Mm. Don’t say that. I don’t like that. This is hardly a prison. Look around. It’s magnificent.”_

_“But am I allowed to leave?”_

_“What need do you have to leave? Everything you could ever want is here, provided for you.”_

_“What I want, is to leave.”_

_“You are free to leave whenever you wish, as long as you’re in the company of an escort.”_

 

_Loki stands in the quarters gifted to him by The Grandmaster, staring out of the window -that reaches from the floor to the ceiling- at the sun rising. The luxury of the place supposed evidence of his being in The Elder’s favour. He’s been here three weeks today. He’d thought that he had done a good job of getting into The Grandmaster’s good graces. He’d thought he was in control, doing well. He doesn’t know how he could’ve been so wrong._

_“You destroyed Asgard.”_

_“I did it for you! That place has always dragged you down! Been unappreciative of your talents! Used you when they wanted and threw you away afterwards! You will no longer be plagued by them!”_

_“It was my home. All that destruction. You killed all those people.”_

_“No one who mattered was left. Hela would’ve killed them painfully. What I did was mercy.”_

 

_Loki stands in the quarters gifted to him by The Grandmaster, staring out of the window -that reaches from the floor to the ceiling- at the sun rising. The luxury of the place supposed evidence of his being in The Elder’s favour. He’s been here three weeks today. He’d thought that he had done a good job of getting into The Grandmaster’s good graces. He’d thought he was in control, doing well. He doesn’t know how he could’ve been so wrong._

_The Grandmaster enters. Loki stiffens. He shouldn’t speak, he’ll only get himself killed, but he can’t not._

_“You killed Thor.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Why? Why did you do it?”_

_“I did it for you. You’re better off without him.”_

_“Don’t you dare say that! …Tell me, tell me why he had to die!”_

_“I’m not discussing this any further,” The Grandmaster says, walking out of the room._

 

Loki blinks as he comes out of the visions, no not visions, memories.

“Loki…”

“No, stay away from me!” Loki yells. He needs to figure this out, none of it makes sense. How can those be memories, he somehow knows they are and that they’re real. But why didn’t he remember them? Is the stone tricking him? They seem so real. A realisation hits. “It was a time loop. You stuck me in a time loop. Why?”

“Yes. But it isn’t what you think…”

“That must have been quite some fun for you, playing me like a toy, watching as I clueless run through the same torments over and over.”

“It wasn’t that at all. I was trying to protect you Loki. The stone is only showing you what it wants. Let me show you all of it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you want the whole truth, not just a piece of it.”

Loki considers The Grandmaster. More information would be useful, even if he has to question the validity of all of it. The soul stone voice is silent. But Loki knows it’s probably because it knows telling Loki not to do something will likely push him to do it. The Grandmaster is dangerous. So is the soul stone. This is reckless. He tells himself it’s just about needing the whole picture. But there’s a part of him- that infernal ache- that still wants to hope that there was a shred of something genuine between them.

He nods. “You may proceed.”

 


End file.
